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Caprica Season 2, Episode 1: Are You Alive?By Pema Newton

Screencap by Tray 'JediTray' Chester.

His hand moved over her hip. The rich curve of her echoed in the shape his fingers made, in the way his palm cupped the sweet soft flesh. It was as if he had been made - just so. Designed - just so, in order to benefit from the sense of her against him. He followed the rise and fall of her, shivered as the sensitive skin on the inside of his wrist brushed across the fine down on the back of her thigh. Lazy, warmed by the late afternoon light, she opened her eyes, smiled. Sated with the sensations of the season. She stretched. Her body undulating beneath his touch. The room glowed. Golden sunlight pushed in through the shutters, painted stripes across her skin. From a distance the sounds of the festival reached into their room, drums and whistles drawing closer. The singing, the chanting, the whoops and howls. She reached for him. Knocking at the door echoed through the room. That crisp staccato rhythm that wouldn’t be denied. He took her hand, kissed each fingertip in turn, then rolled from the bed, walking backwards to the door, unwilling to lose sight of her. The familiar figure waited, as usual, just beyond the doorway. Impassive, as always. Though he had begun to wonder of late, if something more than duty flittered beneath the facade. Perhaps embarrassment at the flesh so nakedly displayed? Or sorrow at, once more, being the one to part them. Hands raised towards him. Then, the slightest metallic click as the shiny steel digits drew level with his temples. End of line.

It was always the same. The man cried. Long-Term Rehabilitation and Respite Unit 98 was gentle, removing the man’s holoband as delicately as if removing a butterfly from a flower. But it didn’t matter. The man always cried. U98 clipped the holoband back into place inside the V-Cabinet, locked it, all the while pretending not to hear the man’s grief. It wasn’t that it didn’t care, it did. But with Matron supervising rounds, it wouldn’t do to advertise that fact. ‘Now, Pentheus, if this is going to be the result then I may have to recommend that we cut your V-Time right back.’ Matron spoke to the man with such authority that U98 was, for an instant, awed. Such command. The instinct to obey burned brightly. The man arched his back, tilted his neck, drove his head deep into the pillow, sniffing noisily trying to clear the mucus from his nostrils. U98 wiped the tears and snot from his face. Matron continued her lecture and started to fit the prostheses back onto the nubs of flesh protruding from beneath the man’s neck, beneath his waist. The rules were clear. Holobands or limbs. But never the two at once. It was the only way the medical teams of the Panacean Peace Hospital could regulate the amount of time their patients spent out of their mangled bodies. After all, wouldn’t do to let vulnerable people such as these wander unsupervised too long in the wilds of V-world. Not these days. Without prosthetic arms the patients could neither put a holoband on nor take one off. They depended on the mercy of the staff to grant them access to a world where they could be whole once more. And it meant that L-TRR units, such as U98, were called upon to enter into those private worlds and retrieve the patients when their allotted time was up. The L-TRR units were learning a lot about what these forever-damaged survivors of the MAGLEV train blast cared for. Matron attached the last of the strapping, wiring and leads to the man’s torso. A hum and a whir, a smattering of red lights blinked on, swept from side to side along the limbs and he was ready. He wasn’t ready to leave the hospital, he’d never be ready for that, but he was ready enough for Matron. ‘You have a visitor, Pentheus,’ she said, Caprican accent like cut glass. ‘See. We were right. We never gave up. Even after all this time, someone has found you.’ She pressed a code sequence into her control pad. The man’s “arms” pushed him bolt upright, his “legs” swung over the edge of the bed. His head, still playing catch-up with the robust mechanical movements, flopped atop his broken-backed, scarred and seared, flesh and bone trunk. His eyes were half-closed, puffy and red. He didn’t raise his head at the sound of the approaching footsteps. The sharp click of heels across the hospital floor was reminiscent of something. Concurrent with the thought, U98 identified it. The footsteps matched the knocking rhythm that summoned the man from the golden room. U98 saw that it took the man longer to make the connection. Mechanical limbs but a slow brain of electrically charged tissue. When the man’s head did finally rise, his lips parted, as if to better take in the scent of the human who approached. U98 swiveled, recognized the figure. She had clothes on now. And many more tattoos.

It was the bitterest of ironies to find him, finally, on the eve of the Feast of Aphrodite. Such a feast they had made of it. Such a time ago. Since becoming Guatrau, Fidelia Fazekas had found that it didn’t matter what name you gave it, irony - fate - pure steaming bad luck, the gods just seemed to enjoy frakking with her. She stared at the simulacrum of a man that hummed and whirred on the edge of the hospital bed. Metal and plastic, leads and wiring, small glimpses of lumpen flesh in between. Only the eyes, golden brown, flecks of green at their heart, remained the same. There were no words. Matron filled the silence with a summary of the patient’s treatment in the wake of the MAGLEV blast, his progress in the years since, adapting to his prostheses, his prospects for release. The Matron reminded Fidelia of the commandant of the CCMax. Authoritarian. Smugly professional. Lacking in respect. In Maximum Security Fidelia had merely been connected to the Guatrau. But still, the Commandant had learned proper respect before she died. Now Fidelia was Guatrau. This Matron either didn’t comprehend the significance of the tattoos that crept up Fidela’s neck and along her jaw, or the woman believed, quite wrongly, that here inside the hospital, those marks of office didn’t count. The Matron was demonstrating the agility of the man’s prostheses, keying commands into the control pad that made “Pentheus” stand, squat, swivel, step from side to side, pick up a glass of water and raise it to his mouth. The man pressed his lips together. The liquid spilt down his chin. Small rebellions. Fidelia smiled. “Pentheus.” Not the name she knew him by. He’d have re-named himself, Fidelia thought. She wondered if the arrogant bitch even realized the irony of it. That word again. Irony. ‘Leave.’ It was an order from The Guatrau. The Matron frowned. She was clearly proud of the work they had done on Pentheus, enjoyed showing it off. A puzzled frown creased her pale forehead, her mouth opened, then closed again, as the two large dark-suited men who flanked Fidelia stepped forward. The man sat down with a bump as the matron hastily punched in a code, gathered her starched skirts and bustled out. Fidelia came closer, lifted her hands, hesitated, her palms hovering above his head, her fingertips barely brushing over the stubble, descending over his temples, along his gaunt cheekbones, her thumbs wiping away the tears that fell from his eyes. She pulled him towards her. He slumped forward, his face buried into the soft curve of her belly. His voice was muffled. ‘Help me to return to the soil, Guatrau. I beg you.’

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And now, back to "Are You Alive?"

Screencap by Tray 'JediTray' Chester.

Gemenon was cold and Clarice Willow did not care for the cold. In fact, she hated the whole austerity ethos of the camps on Gemenon. It was so unnecessary. Pretentious. It wasn’t as if the majority of the pilgrims even felt the discomfort of the draughty tents, thin bedding, non-existent heating. But the Holy Mother decreed that the followers of the One True God who were still bound by flesh should set an example to those who had transcended into steel.

Clarice believed the answer was far less spiritual, far more spiteful. Lacy Rand knew how much she detested the cold and that was why the Holy Mother kept her at a distance, yet demanded she remain on Gemenon. Clarice hugged her knees to her chest and shivered. Her hip was going numb. The quilt between her and the frozen earth was far too thin to stop the chill from entering her bones. She imagined herself in The Dive Bar back on Caprica, sucking in the smoke that warmed her bones, her skin, her veins and melted away all sorrows. She knew that up in the cloisters the Holy Mother was probably, at this very minute, wrapped in her furs, warming her feet beside the fire, cradling a glass of Ambrosia in one hand, Odin in the other, warm and languid after frakking each other’s brains out … ‘Sister Clarice?’ The voice at the door of the tent was respectful, the robotic buzz distinctive. ‘Yes, Aegis, enter.’ Clarice pulled the blankets around her and groaned as she sat upright. ‘Are you injured, Sister Clarice?’ Aegis had only one vocal tone and a “face” that consisted of a red glow that slid from side to side. Yet somehow its words were filled with comfort and concern. Clarice smiled, felt her lips tremble and her eyes fill with tears. God’s children. Filled with his love. She reached up and took the robot’s outstretched hand, the steel ice-cold through her glove, as it raised her up. ‘I am dying, Aegis,’ she said with the small brave smile she had refined over the years, the one that accompanied this sermon. ‘As are all those still trapped in flesh, yet I know -‘ the robot and the woman completed the line together, ‘- with the love of the One True God, I will be born into a life that is infinite.’

U98 had been forgotten. No, that wasn’t true. To be forgotten one had to be noticed first. U98 knew that the Guatrau and her enforcers had paid no more attention to it than they had to the bed on which the man sat weeping or the reeking bedpan beneath it. The man was begging. The Guatrau listened. U98 studied her. The man’s virtual world construct of her would need updating. She was older now, with tattoos and authority that lent her face a grave dignity. She was leaner too. The curves of a younger woman had hardened, dangerously, into muscle and sinew. U98 imagined her naked. Imagined touching her. For eternity. The man sobbed and begged. ‘I have no control, Guatrau. I’m a toy. A frakking toy for Caprican scientists. I cannot control my return to the soil. They deny me my return. Please Guatrau,’ He looked up. ‘… Fiddy, please.’ U98 observed the woman’s eyes soften. It was as if they swelled slightly with the moisture that built up and welled against the bottom of her lids before spilling over. Her fingers spread wide across the back of the man’s head. U98 recognized the gesture. In the golden room the man’s hair was longer, her fingers would knot in it as she drew him down between her thighs. In the golden room her fingers were bare, they lacked the tattoos and the heavy ring that now weighed them down. She whispered the man’s name ‘Aris’ and U98 knew their moment was at hand.

Aegis handed Clarice her holoband, ‘He awaits.’ The shimmer passed and Clarice was seated in the church pew, Aegis at her side. The church was empty. Between services. The Cylon unit that shimmered into virtuality before her was a regular attendee. U98. It had declined re-designation, it felt unworthy, it explained. When the time was right, it would claim a name. It would claim the name of the first one it saved. Clarice had a gift for identifying those with potential. She had seen it in Zoe, in Pan and Lacy, and now she saw it in Cylons. She had seen it in U98 and its brethren. They were perfectly placed. Working around the clock, never tiring, always kind, always patient. Tending to those humans who were never going to live again, the limbless and the maimed, the dying. They washed and wiped them, fed them and comforted them, they followed them into their holoband dreams and brought them the promise of the One True God, of the love that waited to embrace them, of the infinite life that awaited them. The One True God promised a life in which they were whole again in a virtual world and physical again in the shape of a cylon. Two lives everlasting. U98 brought one metal finger to its forehead, genuflected. ‘He is ready. I am ready. We are Aris.’ Aegis and Clarice mirrored U98’s sign then de-rezed to their places in front of the computer displays. How Nestor would have rejoiced! Clarice did not accept the stadium bombing was a failure; it was merely a misstep, a necessary one. Yes, it had triggered persecution but that had forced them to consider alternatives. It had galvanised Zoe to take Apotheosis and the best of her father’s innovations and refine them. When proselytising openly became impossible The Soldiers of The One worked in secret, in a virtual church. A virtual church that welcomed anyone, in any avatar form, to enter and learn the truth. A virtual church existed as reality for the Cylons. They projected into it at any time. Only a fraction of their processing power was required to perform the menial tasks that Colonial life assigned them. Left them free to discover the love of The One, to share it, spread it. The levels on the computer displays jumped.

U98 watched as Fidelia arched downwards and covered Aris’s mouth with hers. Her strong tattooed fingers slid around his neck, found the carotid arteries and pressed. His head lolled. Unconscious, not dead. Not yet. Painless. She wanted it to be painless, U98 realized. She pinched his nose between her fingers, and drawing back, closed his mouth with her free hand, covered it, let her tears splash over him until he stopped breathing.

They could have done it without a name. U98 had not nominated one, submitting the regular updated scans for the man’s avatar with a line of code for a file name. None of them had ever believed the man was “Pentheus.” But now, in the dying moments, the program now had a name, Aris. Clarice smiled at the rightness. Aris, son of Zeus and Hera, a murderous, bloodstained coward. It befitted a Ha’la’tha who conned his Guatrau, his lover, to return him to the soil, in order to seek infinite salvation in lines of code. This Tauron would inspire more, not all would be so keen to seek the soil now. The levels on the screens spiked, as the heart gamely pumped the last of its oxygen-starved blood through its chambers. Then the lines went flat. The programs were automated. The transfer would have happened whether she witnessed it or not. But that was no way to celebrate a birth. These were the moments that made the Gemenon cold and the Holy Mother’s contempt worthwhile. A true rush, the one she sought to replicate with the smoke and the drink but never could. Clarice still felt it, each time they brought one home. U98 had come to her and named itself Aris. She watched as the lines changed. The program shift began. This was how God wanted it to be. Saving one soul at a time.

Aris saw the room as if for the first time. The muted colour schemes, carefully chosen by a committee of psychologists to imbue a sense of peaceful resignation in the inmates. The human wreckage on the bed. A lump of twisted meat with ridiculous fake limbs jutting awkwardly from it. The face at least, looked peaceful. Fidelia, made the sounds of mourning, gave the dead man’s cheek one last stroke with her finger, then straightened her shoulders. Her heels clicked rapidly. A sound that would never disturb Aris again. Matron would return to find her prize exhibit dead. It was common knowledge that the programming of the U98 made it impossible for it to do harm. A forensic examination would confirm bruising consistent with a human hand. If Matron was foolish, she would make a fuss. Report it to the GDD. If she was foolish, she would not see the final days of the Festival of Aphrodite. If she was fortunate, someone from the GDD would point out that one didn’t make a fuss about the Guatrau, not if one wanted to live a long and healthy life. Aris clenched a hand, felt currents and circuits, ripple and flex.

The festival had reached its zenith, the streets thronged with genuine followers of the Cult of Aphrodite and others who just appreciated the licentious atmosphere. The temple stairs were ankle deep in blossoms, a narcotic perfume released as they were crushed beneath the revelers’ bare feet. Aris saw her standing in a side portico, her back to him, a sweet breeze shifting her robe, baring tattoos blazing black across her skin. He slipped a hand across her eyes and an arm around her waist, crushing her against his chest. Her skin pulsed warm against him. His heart pulsed back. He felt like he had never really touched her before this moment. Fidelia tilted back her head, rested it against his shoulder. Aris uncovered her eyes. ‘Are you alive?’ she said. ‘Now and forever. By your command.’